USING AUTHENTIC MATERIAL TO TEACH TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS
Apri Yayat Susendi1, An Fauzia Rozani Syafei2, English Department
Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Padang
Abstract
This paper is written to discuss the teaching of Translation for the students of English Department Students. The difficulties of producing an accurate translation and the importance Teaching Translation to produce a good and understandable translation product are the points underlying this paper. Therefore, the authors use the Authentic materials to assist students in studying Translation and prepare candidates to face the real translation work as they become the translator later.
The material discussed is an explanation of authentic materials and the procedure of teaching Translation using Authentic Materials. This learning strategy is expected to be useful for an English professor in the field of translation so that they can enrich the teaching of translation. It is also desirable to students in order to improve their skills in the English language text mengterjemahkan and increase the motivation to learn translation.
Key words: translation, authentic, material.
A. Introduction
Translation as an activity has always being a part of a language. Throughout the centuries it has gone along with the need to communicate with people of different languages. Translation, as a service, allows us to overcome linguistics barriers in which the mother tongue confines us. It enables people and societies to communicate with each other. Translation also provides access to ideas and experiences that would otherwise be incomprehensible for human being. In multilingual societies and a globalized world, translation is all around us as an authentic act of communication.
Every translation activity has one or more specific purpose and in every each of this purpose, the main aim of translation is to serve as a cross-cultural bilingual communication tool among people. In the past decades, the activity of translation has developed because of rising international trade, increased migration, globalization, the recognizing of linguistic minorities, and the expansion of mass media and technology. For these reasons, the translator plays an important role as
1 English ELTSP of English Department of FBS Universitas Negeri Padang graduated on March 2017
2
bilingual or multi-lingual cross-cultural transmitter of culture by attempting to interpret concepts and speech in a variety of texts as faithfully and accurately as possible so the idea they brought within them can be understood.
The translation is simply understood as a transfer process from a foreign language or second language to the mother tongue. However, transferring the idea from one language to the other language is not as simple as it sounds. Basically, translating is a hard task because the consequences of wrong translation or poor translation can be catastrophic. Mistakes made within the performance of this activity can obviously be irreparable. Research related to translation had been conducted by Annisa, saunir and Don in 2012.
The impact of wrong translation or poor translation can be serious. Poor translation within the field area such as science, medicine, legal matters and technology can cause serious problems toward misunderstanding that would happen if the information in these field areas of knowledge are not transferred as faithfully and accurately as possible. It is quite clear that a poor translation can not only lead to hilarity or to minor confusion, but it can also be matter of life and death. These emphasize the importance of good translation product. To avoid poor translation product, the existence of translation courses in university become crucial. Therefore, most of English department in University provide translation courses. Despite the importance of the translation courses in the English Department programs at universities, the objectives of these courses have been difficult to achieve. In teaching translation in the English department a balance between theory and practice should be kept although more practice needed, because it is practice that actually produces a good translator (Samudra, 1993).
Based on this point also, the translation course is designed in such a way that students who take this course will practice translating as much as possible. In providing a good practice for the students, the real life textshould be exposed and used within the process of learning Translation. In this case, using authentic materials to teach translation is the best way to attune the students in translating real life text or t1.he type of text they will be dealing with as soon as the work as translator. It will help them train their skill in producing good translation and face real case scenario of translation task or translation work. In this paper, the writer will focus on authentic material and explain more about how to use authentic material in teaching translation to English Department students.
Formulation of the Problem
Based on the background above, the problem will be formulated as follow.
“What type of authentic materials used to teach translation to English department students?”
The Purpose of the Paper
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how does the teacher uses authentic material in teaching translation to English department students.
B. The Procedure of Teaching Translation by Using Authentic Material
1. Preparing the Materials
First, materials should be authentic in terms of texts and tasks. This will be a great help for the students if they face real-world texts and tasks; in other words, when they become translators, they have already prepared. Second, materials should stimulate interaction. This is important for active class discussion. If students are accustomed to discussing translation problems in course, it is likely that they are more critical in evaluating their translation when they work as translator. Third, materials should allow learners to focus on formal aspects of the language. A translation might be read by audience from different educational level. Therefore, students should be trained to decide how they should restructure the same message in different language in such a way that is common for the readers in that language. Fourth, materials should encourage learners to develop learning skills and skills in learning-how-to-learn. The class discussion in discussing the assignments are meant to provide students with efficient translation strategies: how to cope with the problem of long sentences, how to choose words etc. Fifth, materials should encourage learners to apply their knowledge to work as translators. It is assumed that students will know how to cope with problems of translation after they finish the course. Finally, the materials and the teaching methodology are used with the goal that students are ready to become translators after they take the course.
According to McGrath (2002) there are eight criteria to be considered when choosing appropriate authentic texts. These are: (1) Relevance to course book and learners' needs, (2) Topic interest, (3) Cultural fitness, (4) Logistical considerations, (5) Cognitive demands, (6) Linguistic demands, (7) Quality and (8) Exploitability.
The lecturer can utilize the popularity of internet and takes the learning material from it. In this case, the writer is taking the example of authentic material from BBC online newspaper.
This web site can be used as the sources for the learning material as it will boost the students’ interest. The lecturer then chooses one topic to be presented in the Translation class.
2. Brainstorming Session
Brainstorming session is one of crucial part that should be done before the process of teaching translation begins. In this section, the lecturer takes time to allow the students prepare them self toward the translation tasks. In brainstorming session, the preparation could be done by giving a background knowledge to the student about the texts or articles which are about to translate. The lecturers ask questions that are central for the overall comprehension of the text and the students try to give as many answers to them as possible. The questions must involve a wide variety of possible answers. In translation works, students will deals with various kind of text and various kinds of topics. Therefore, it is important for the lecturer to explain general knowledge related to the text. By doing such, the students will be more aware of vocabularies which are common based on the type of text they are dealing with.
In translation, the students are often faced with difficult vocabularies.
Therefore, it would be better if students use brainstorming sessions to find the meaning of difficult vocabularies the may find in the related text or they might find in the same type of text. The lecturer should encourage the students to provide their guesses and accept all of them even the wildest ones. After that, with
the help of the lecturer, the students try to evaluate them and pick up the most appropriate definitions for the vocabularies they are trying to understand. This session allows the students to prepare knowledge and vocabularies needed to understand the text deeply. For example:
In this case the lecturer will ask general question related to technology firms, CIA, wikiLeaks etc. and what the students know about them. These questions will help the students in understanding the general information about the text and project on what common vocabularies they will face to translate the text.
3. Reading Session
In this session the students will be given the opportunity to browse the text by doing scan reading and/or scam reading. The students, assisted by the lecturer, should identify the source, the norm, the type of text, the register, the style and the readership of the text selected. After doing scan reading and/or scam reading, the second reading must be a "deep" reading, placing emphasis on items where translation problems may appear. In other words, this is the part where "reading with translation intention," happen, i.e. doing pre-editing and assessing the quality
of the writing because not all texts are well written. If the students detect mistakes (usually due to misprints) in the original text, they should be entitled to amend them in their version. When doing this "reading with translation intention," the students should first underline unknown terms and then they should mentally confront potential translation difficulties in the text with suitable translation procedures.
In this session, after scam and scan reading, the students should have highlighted the difficult words to deal with. It will ease them in the process of translation. This procedure will be seen as follows:
4. Researching Session
In this session, the students research the terms and concepts appearing in the text. This is where language tools can also help the students by making a term list containing the unknown terms (remembering that terms can have completely different meanings/equivalents, depending on the context). The students are not allowed to start translating until they have established all the missing equivalents in the target language. As the result, the problems that might occur during the
translation process can be anticipated. After highlighting the terms and concept, the students are allowed to begin searching for the possible meaning of the listed words.
5. Reconstruction of the Meaning
In this session, the Students have to be shown that translation is not about simply transposing items from one language to another at the level of lexis and syntax, but that it is about conveying meaning. In general, they need to see the translator as a mediator between cultural worlds, as someone who helps those unfamiliar with a particular culture to understand and appreciate all the cultural nuances of the original text. The students need to understand the meaning of the vocabularies not only in lexical aspect but also in its contextual aspect. Therefore, an understandable translation can be produced.
6. Construction of the Translation
In this session, the lecturer ask the students to correct an inaccurate translation which, depending on their proficiency, can be at a simple factual level or may include idiom, collocation, metaphor, etc. This can be an excellent source of discussion. The task can be varied by using an incorrect translation alongside a correct one, but not telling students which is which. As the result, it enables the students to personally think about the correct translation. After correcting meaning the lecturer ask the students to construct the translation product based on the meaning discussed. The students will begin to transfer the meaning into target language as well as constructing the text in the target language, in this case, Indonesian language.
7. Revising Session
In this session, the students should revise their own work, irrespective of whether it is then going to be revised elsewhere. Revising the text means reading it through and examining it firstly for formal errors: sentence or word missed out;
superfluous words; spelling mistakes, and so on. This is then followed by a second check for content errors: has everything been understood and translated correctly?
Has the terminology been correctly applied?
8. Discussing Session
After revising their work, the lecturer leads a classroom discussion to give the opportunity for the students to ask question and compare their translation. This enables them to be aware of the variety of translations’ product can be due to the different understanding among the student in translation (a certain word in certain context can be translated various ways).
As Newmark states, "translation is for discussion" (Newmark, 1995b). Students should then be encouraged to take notes and discuss the (in)convenience of the contributions and comments arising from this analytical reading of each one of the different versions proposed. The students, assisted by the lecturer, analyze the translation strategies and procedures used, and discuss the reasons taken into account in the choice of each analyzed criterion: "The ability to discuss translations in an objective way is central to a translator's competence", (Kussmaul, 1995).
In the final stage the lecturer’s contribution is crucial: after constructing translations, the teacher and the students indicate their own preferences, giving reasons; the lecturer may offer his/her own alternative translations.
Here are some guidelines on how to help the students evaluate their own work.
The principles are adapted from Frederick Fuller: The Translator’s Handbook.
meaning
The translation should reflect accurately the meaning of the original text. Ask yourself:
is the meaning of the original text clear? if not, where does the uncertainty lie?
are any words 'loaded', that is, are there any underlying implications?
is the dictionary meaning of a particular word the most suitable one?
form
The ordering of words and ideas in the translation should match the original as closely as possible. (This is particularly important in translating legal documents, guarantees, contracts. etc.) But differences in language structure often require changes in the form and order of words.
register
Languages often differ greatly in their levels of formality in a given context. Consider:
- would any expression in the original sound too formal / informal, cold/warm, personal/impersonal . . . if translated literally?
- what is the intention of the speaker or writer? (to persuade/
dissuade, apologize/criticize?) Does this come through in the translation?
source language
One of the most frequent criticisms of translation is that 'it doesn't sound natural'. A good way of shaking off the source language (SL) influence is to set the text aside and translate a few sentences aloud, from memory. This will suggest natural patterns of thought in the target language (TL), which may not come to mind when the eye is fixed on
influence the SL text.
style and clarity
The translator should not change the style of the original. But if the text is sloppily written, or full of tedious repetitions, the translator may, for the reader's sake, correct the defects.
idiom
Idiomatic expressions are notoriously untranslatable. If the expressions cannot be directly translated, try any of the specific methods of transferring the meaning of the idioms.
The golden rule is: if the idiom does not work in the TL, do not force it into the translation.
9. Retranslating and the Product of Translation
After the class discussion, students will be able to grap the idea of what the text is about and understand the difficult vocabularies listed earlier, the lecturer ask them to re translate the text. Finally, the students hand in the final version of their revised and post edited segments, which have already been amended in the light of the whole text. The work must be typed, double-spaced and paged according to the original. The translation product will be as follow:
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